Hollywood Sex Symbol – Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth trivia starts with her birth in 1918, a regular New York girl that had a unique advantage over many of the other girls that wanted to grow up to become actresses. Her father and grandfather were both extremely well known Spanish dance instructors who wanted her to become a dancer, and her mother was pushing for her to be an actress. This meant that even from a young age, Hayworth was getting the training and the knowledge that she needed in order to become an accomplished and successful performer.

Her birth name was actually Margarita Cansino, and a Rita Hayworth quiz will show that the name change came after she signed a contract with Columbia pictures which started her film career in earnest, although she had appeared in some small pictures prior to that time. She would get to work with stars like Cary Grant and James Cagney in her early years, and quickly began to establish herself as a leading lady.

An interesting piece of Rita Hayworth trivia is that she was the person handpicked by Fred Astaire to co-star with him in “You’ll Never get Rich”. He needed a dance partner and knew her father and his work, and assumed correctly that his daughter must also be a talented dancer.

The status of Rita Hayworth as a sex symbol was already in place by the mid forties, but there was one picture that she would make with Glenn Ford that would make her the ultimate desirable woman of the time. The film was “Gilda” which sparked controversy and success, and it was the response to this film and her status as a “bombshell” that led to her image being painted on the first nuclear bomb that was ever tested after the war.

A Rita Hayworth quiz will show that she was married five different times, including some which were very high profile marriages. Her second marriage to Orson Welles certainly caused some waves throughout Hollywood , and her third marriage to Prince Aly Khan was also cause for much discussion. The actress struggled with drinking throughout most of her life, and may attribute the problem to both her possibly troubled family life and her extremely volatile and abusive marriages. She quite acting in the early seventies, and in 1981 was placed into the care of her daughter after her health progressed to the point that she could no longer look after herself.